In our countdown of the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family, Reason #6 is:  75% of the world’s fish stocks are being harvested faster than they can reproduce. World Population Day is July 11, when we’ll reveal the number one reason to choose a small family.

Fisheries are declining because a growing human population is eating the fish, and because our other activities are making more and more of the oceans inhospitable for the fish. Ocean acidification and ocean dead zones are among the byproducts of the massive scale of the human enterprise on the planet. The University of British Columbia (UBC) Fisheries Centre has found that big predatory fish like tuna and cod have declined globally by more than two-thirds over the past century. Every year we see new headlines like this: Study Sees Global Collapse of Fish Species. No matter who is doing the studying, the news is never good.

We know the scale of human activity on Earth passed into overshoot several decades ago. The coming crises are so severe we must make drastic changes in both our consumption and our reproductive behavior.  We can humanely and voluntarily get world population back to a sustainable level within a century, if we are genuinely committed to it.  What we lack is the will to acknowledge the problem and to strongly recommend to all our children that they limit the size of their family.

The current population level and state of overshoot are two very good reasons to choose to have no children, or perhaps just one. Even stopping at two will help. Adoption is a good option for those who desire more.

Please share this thought with your friends and children. Subscribe to our updates to get the rest of the Top 10 Reasons to Choose a Small Family!

Dave Gardner
Director of the documentary
GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth